


After You've Gone

by daredevilmoon



Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: Fix-It of Sorts, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-30
Updated: 2015-12-07
Packaged: 2018-05-04 04:58:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5321351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daredevilmoon/pseuds/daredevilmoon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Philip isn't sure about all of this 'being relegated to history' business, particularly as it concerns himself and a rather changed Thomas Barrow.</p><p>  <i>It was shocking and exhilarating as anything; he felt suddenly like Lord Henry after the reunion and couldn’t help but laugh. “Christ. I see you’ve kept that painting safe all those years,” Philip said.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a direct spiritual predecessor to [Some of These Days](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1123332/chapters/2264269), but it's not strictly necessary to read that before this.

The warm London sound greeted Philip with as much aplomb as the heat, matching neatly in time as they wrapped about him. There was still something intoxicating about the early days of the Season, that initial satisfaction of a favoured song being played over, and he couldn’t help but to smile slightly to himself as he walked aimlessly through the streets.

Taking on the _vivre_ of the city, he found himself swept up away from his residences on the sea of youthful gaiety. The young girls ready to come out, the boys eager to impress - world-weary parents on both sides, this was all a thing he was glad to have put behind him. In these years after his own marriage and before his son came of age, the Season leant itself to its truest freedom yet. He had nothing to lose or gain other than his reputation, as precarious as that lay already in his own heart, sure as he was that his wife was going to seek a divorce in the coming years if not the the present; now, at least, he was altogether an unscathed sort of man. In the city, his blood thrummed a little clearer for his lack of worry, his feet stepped a little easier.

Philip found himself occasionally waylaid by acquaintances of varying stripes, all brief questions and smiles and parting: even that he couldn’t find it in himself to be annoyed at, with chatter so all about him. If nothing else, speaking seemed to suck him further into the Season’s humming heart, another vein branching from society’s centre. There was a beauty in that as there was a beauty in remaining without; he revelled dearly in stepping from one to the other. From out of sight of his wife’s smile into the arms of a man, on his more daring days, to merely leaving a stolid engagement to drink himself to excess with a rather more outre’ friend. Each gave him a little thrill of excitement to his fingertips, whether gazing upon society with the knowledge of the ideas which still flickered cinema-bright in his mind or speaking of his family in slurring tones to a friend.

Daring wasn’t a thing he would necessarily call himself, but he allowed himself these indulgences for the sake of his health. He’d never made the attempt to lead a more ascetic life, but found himself contented as he was wont to be for what his life was. He might have breathed in secret from necessity, but at least he never forgot to breathe.

His eyes slipped from shopfront to passersby as he continued on, enjoying the garishness of displays in either location, when he found himself nearly running into a man who’d stopped abruptly before him. Philip stepped back a little on his heels, attempting to keep his good spirits despite the annoyance. He glanced at the fellow as he shook his lighter frustratedly, trying to light his cigarette once more. As Philip took him in he felt the question being posed in his chest, but quieted it for the moment.

“Sorry,” the man said, turning to look at Philip. Their eyes met and Philip’s heart seemed to burst before piecing itself together once more with each subsequent beat. “Well. Hallo.”

In the years they had spent apart, Philip had slowly lost sight within his mind’s eye of what Thomas looked like precisely, though the facts of him had stayed emblazoned upon his mind with the heat of their summer. His colours spelled the sorts of dreams Philip couldn’t ever seem to push from his mind, moulded around the singular fact of his beauty. Now, standing before him as he had those many years ago, he seemed even more beautiful than Philip might have guessed at. It was shocking and exhilarating as anything; he felt suddenly like Lord Henry after the reunion and couldn’t help but laugh.

“Christ. I see you’ve kept that painting safe all those years,” Philip said. He placed a hand lightly on Thomas’s arm and glanced behind him, slipping against the shopfront. Thomas paused a moment, as if taking in the traffic, before he moved to stand nearer to Philip, his lips pursed slightly.

“I’m not sure why you think that’s flattering,” he said, though without particular edge. He inhaled deeply on his cigarette, cheeks hollowing in that salacious manner he’d always had, tilting his head up to exhale a thin line of smoke. The sunlight lay all around him and he was clearer than Philip recalled ever having seen him, all hard lines and bold strokes. Philip bit his lip slightly before grinning, suppressing a frantic sort of laugh; he must have been far more foolish a young man than he’d allowed himself credit for.

“It is more than it isn’t,” he responded, shrugging. Thomas just looked at him, his expression just this side of curiosity. “Glad to see you’re still in one piece. Truly.”

“Truly?” Thomas mocked. His mouth twisted again slightly, only straightening to take another drag. “You’re all right as well, then?”

“I feel as though we oughtn’t catch up here,” Philip bit out, feeling absurd and abrupt. He looked around him at the bustle; it had seemed so protective earlier in the day, but now it just seemed full of faces willing to up-end him into trouble. Sensibility tinged with fear had kept him safe this long and he didn’t intend to spoil all that (certainly, his mind provided, not when coupled with a very unsensible sort of companion). “Would you care to come to my club with me, for a drink?”

Thomas’s brow furrowed in pure incredulity. “You want me to come to your club with you?”

“I’ve a - a flat, as well,” he amended, though amended himself once more at the changing expression on Thomas’s face, “or we could go to the park, if you’d care to.  I think parting ways after such a fortuitous meeting would be rather a waste.”

“I seem to remember that as being what you wanted,” Thomas said. He spoke carefully, but there still seemed to him a lack of venom behind the words which were intended to goad. He seemed to realise the same, because he only sighed and engulfed himself in an arabesque of smoke. “What do you want me to come to your club with you for?”

“Nostalgia,” Philip said, leaning in slightly. He knew as soon as he’d laid eyes upon Thomas again that he couldn’t let the day slip so easily out of his memory, even as he careened back to the tens.  “I think it would be a wonderful thing to share a moment of it between we two who were last close when the world was still beautiful. What a lot to talk about.”

“So you want to buy me a drink and talk about sad things, then?” he asked. The threat of a laugh had twisted its way around his words and he cocked his head, waiting for the response.

“I couldn’t have put it more succinctly. Or - Christ, we could talk about the cinema. Do you very  strong feelings about John Gilbert?”

“Not very strong,” Thomas said, this time the laugh evident on his face. Philip felt a stab of victory and he waited a moment for Thomas to answer his earlier question, studying his face. Amusement still pricked at the edges of his expression, but he looked more contemplative as the joke died. He looked at Philip, a question written over his face, but it was one Philip couldn’t have entirely put an answer to. Thomas finished his cigarette and inhaled deeply before he gave a final shrug. “Let’s go to your club, then. Talk about sad things.”

Philip’s hand brushed Thomas’s arm once more, briefly, as they began to walk in the opposite direction to which they had been going. The clarity of his pleasure was making him slightly sick and he smiled brightly at Thomas when they caught eyes. “I think it would probably be acceptable to sneak happier topics in.”

“Your wife, for instance,” Thomas said - half question, half statement. Another thing meant to goad, inevitably, but this was a topic about which all men seemed skilled at pooh-poohing.

“Christ,” he huffed, “I think I’d rather talk about the War.”


	2. Chapter 2

“This place is a lot more respectable than the last place you took me,” Thomas said with a smile, casting his eyes at the few gentlemen who were sat about reading or chatting. There was a low hum of activity, enough to cover their own conversation - rather the idea of the place, so far as Philip was concerned.

“We could go to the Criterion later, if you’d like. It isn’t quite what it was, but it is still rather daring,” Philip said as a waiter approached. He ordered a pair of brandies, watching Thomas eyeing the waiter until he was well out of earshot.

“Are we having a day of it, then?” Thomas asked.

“I’ve nothing else on for now. Have you?”

“No,” Thomas replied, shaking his head. There was something about his expression that seemed somewhat off to Philip, as though he were a bit lost. It was strange to see it written over a face like Thomas’s. “What will you say if someone asks who I am?”

“That we fought together. It’s true in a vague sort of way,” Philip said, thanking the waiter as he delivered them their drinks. Thomas took a sip to belay his response, watching after the waiter once more.

“True in a lying sort of way,” he said. His eyebrows quirked slightly.

“We fought on the same side, surely that’s near enough to the truth,” Philip replied, shrugging lightly from behind his drink. The caution, the reticence which Thomas was showing set Philip further at ease even than he’d been before; he settled back in his chair slightly.

“Well, I won’t contradict you.”

“Everything must have a start,” he said. Thomas made a bit of a face and Philip smiled at him, then nodded down to his gloved hand. “Is that your blighty?”

“Yeah,” he confirmed. There was a vague unease about him now, the opposite hand running over the glove; everyone knew how men got wounds like that. Philip found that he couldn’t have minded; it seemed to have proved saviour enough to spare Thomas and he could only be grateful for it.

“You’re alive. Well done, you,” he said. He tipped his glass in briefest toast to Thomas. “I’d a blighty, but it wasn’t one that kept me home indefinitely. My horse spooked at a mortar and got twisted up in the mud until she fell over, while I was still astride. It broke my leg, which made me rather useless in France. When it healed I went back, of course.”

“I stayed out. Home service,” Thomas clarified, “at the hospital near Downton.”

“Were you a medic?” Philip asked; that seemed unlikely.

“Stretcher bearer. Then I oversaw the hospital while I were here.”

“I shouldn’t have taken you for that sort.”.

“The helpful sort?” Thomas asked. Philip stilled for a moment, glass to lips to his hide his consideration.

“The sort to care for people you haven’t specially chosen,” he said carefully, lowering his drink. “I don’t remember you as being a particularly friendly person as regards most people.”

“It was only a position; I can do a job I’m put to,” Thomas replied, voice snapping tightly. His lips pursed and Philip went to speak, to rebuff the imagined insult, when Thomas began once more. “They were all posh officers, some didn’t like being tended to by a bloke like me -  complete bastards, but they still had to be looked after. Better than being in the bloody trenches, at any rate.”

“Naturally. The broken leg was better,” he said lightly. It was easier to speak of now, to think on; it all seemed rather like a nightmare too strange to have taken place, one shared between all men. It was bizarre to imagine Thomas in the trenches, bearing up until he hadn’t - hard to imagine him a soldier. “Did you lose anyone? Friends, I mean.”

“A - bloke I worked with, but we weren’t friendly. I didn’t see much use in making friends in the trenches, so many dying all about; the other stretcher-bearers kept going out. After - after I had a friend in this soldier, he’d gotten blinded with gas. He didn’t die of it, though. Killed himself.”

“Poor fellow. Were the two of you very close?”

It was to Philip an unbearable thought; the war seemed, in its way, to have been worse for men like them. Normal men had thoughts of girls at home to survive for, but even if a homosexual had a sweetheart the danger of death was run through once twice as strong, being pumped by two hearts as it was in each body.

“Not so close as that,” Thomas dithered. “We might have been, but - we weren’t. Did you?”

“A friend from Oxford.  When I’d see the lists of dead it seemed I always knew a handful of the men from school or society, but I suppose his death still upset me. We hadn’t spoken in years, but there was something so awfully final in seeing his name.”

“Death tends to be fairly final,” Thomas said, though not unkindly. His tensions seemed hesitant at best now, which Philip wasn’t sure to attribute it to the drink or his company; he chose to believe it a mixture of both. “At least we made it out.”

“I did wonder whether you had,” Philip admitted. “I thought you must have; you didn’t seem likely to have let anything so paltry as a bullet stop you. I’m glad my suspicions were confirmed.”

“I’m glad you were so certain, because I bloody wasn’t. As you can see,” he said, opening up his gloved hand. He swallowed, looking contemplative as he finished the last of his brandy.

“I’ll toast the last of mine to my certainty,” Philip said, raising his glass slightly to Thomas before drinking. “Would you care for another?”

“That’ll be all right.”

Philip signalled to the waiter once more, tentatively ordering a pair of doubles with a raised brow to Thomas, who shrugged before he fished into his pocket, pulling out his watch and checking the time.

“When have you got to be back?”

“I haven’t. I’m on holiday for the week, actually.”

“Oh, that’s fortunate,” Philip said, half-formed ideas swimming to his chest. Thomas shot him a look through his lashes as he replaced his watch. “Though I suppose I ought to have guessed; I can’t imagine you’d go back after three drinks.”

“I can’t think of a better time for three drinks,” Thomas said, smirking slightly as the waiter served them.

“I can think of several,” Philip said. He felt very light, just a little warmed from the alcohol - altogether pleasant and he smiled at Thomas easily. “I am glad you agreed to this.”

“I might be, as well,” Thomas said, voice tinged with surprise. “I didn’t really have much in the way of plans for this week, but it certainly wasn’t this. I don’t - really catch up much.”

“Neither do I. I haven’t got many people I’d be interested in catching up with, honestly. Generally speaking if I’ve not seen or written to someone in years, there’s a reason.”

“You’ve a reason with me. I’ve a reason with you,” Thomas challenged.

“Yes, but we kept company awfully well - and it has been ages. I imagine we’ve both changed enough, perhaps even for the better. Perhaps in the same ways. I suppose we’re finding out,” Philip said. He swirled the brandy around his glass a moment, holding it out to Thomas. “Shall we toast to finding out?”

“I’m not sure why you want to get me so tight,” Thomas laughed, though he returned the gesture. “To finding out.”

“Nothing strengthens a friendship so much as the freedom of drinks,” Philip said, replacing his glass on the table between them. “I remember ours before seemed built on them.”

“Among other things.”

“Precisely,” Philip said. “All wonderful things, don’t you think?”

There was a pregnant pause, heavy beyond what Philip wanted of the moment. He wanted acquiescence, wanted that shared memory to be one they saw in the same light - one of a new dawn.

“I do. Now,” Thomas added. Then, looking slightly devious, “Tell me about your wife.”

“Oh, hell, I’d hope you’d forgotten,” Philip said with a sigh that was only half mocking. “Clara. She’s an American whose father is someone to do with steel and she brought with her all of the silvers dollars of such an enterprise.”

“When did the two of you marry?”

“Sixteen. While I was here recovering my leg, actually. God only knows why she was here then, but she was charming enough. I don’t think her father liked me terribly, which only strengthened her resolve to marry as soon as we could. I went along with it with the notion if I happened to die, it would be without an heir, but the estate could remain intact. A fact which my mother was thrilled at. It gave me a bit of peace on that front, at least.”

“Bit of a nasty surprise when that didn’t work out.”

“I wouldn’t go so far as all that,” Philip said with a humourless little laugh. He splayed his fingers over his thighs, sighing. “We have a child. An heir. She was with him when the flu was spreading; my mother died of it, but neither Clara or I fell ill. It all seemed rather purposeful.”

“I’m sorry.”

“About which part?” Philip asked.

“Whichever part you’d like it to be for.”

“I’m not entirely sure. Which is a dreadful thing to say. You see, so soon into our reacquaintance and already I’m telling you dreadful things,” he said. He allowed himself a half smile, appraising Thomas. It was clear he was tight, his pale skin having flushed with blood. It provoked a crest of desire through Philip; he’d seen that selfsame flush without the drinks and suddenly it seemed all he could think. “You never - married.”

“No,” Thomas replied. He blinked into his glass as though expecting it to give speech to his answer. “No. I’m the sort people come and go with.”

“I don’t understand that a bit.”

“You - even friends have. You did.”

“I understood that more than a bit at the time, I grant you. All the same, I’m finding it increasingly difficult to fathom,” he said. His temples buzzed and he stopped himself speaking, from realising the sudden depth of truth of the statement - stopped himself from following his impulse to place his hand over Thomas’s - even if only so chaste a touch as if to prove him real. Thomas seemed to be following his line of sight and catching up what he was thinking; he laughed.

“I think if I’d known we’d meet I would have eaten nearer to the time.”

“Would you like to order something? They do wonderful food here.”

“I’d like to go someplace else,” Thomas said, swallowing the final two fingers of brandy in a gulp. “I’m sure you’ve all sorts of recommendations.”

“I’m sure I could bring an idea to mind,” Philip replied, grinning. “Shall we make our way?”

 


End file.
